


Under the Northern Star

by Varaen



Series: Maglor In Time [2]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Gen, Maglor in history, POV Outsider
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-16
Updated: 2016-10-16
Packaged: 2018-08-19 21:43:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8225686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Varaen/pseuds/Varaen
Summary: Maglor plays his songs by the sea, year after year. From time to time, he meets someone new on the way.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [BloodEarthAndInk](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BloodEarthAndInk/gifts).



It was the second day of the festival and the weather was still as sunny and pleasant as it had been the entire week, with no sign of change in the near future, which was a rarity at the coast of the Baltic sea. Magda would not be surprised if it remained like this until the festival was over. It had been years since it had last rained in the Tricity area during the song festival in Sopot. Long enough in fact that many believed it a result of divine intervention. It mattered little to her. Magda was happy to take advantage of this coincidence and spend her vacation in the sun.

It was still early, but the pier was more than just a little busy. Along the border, artists, vendors and musicians sat or stood, all eager to make some money. Between them, a few early risers strolled, Magda among them. She liked to get a headstart on all the other tourists and enjoy the sea in relative peace and quiet before the hustle and bustle of the day rolled in. It also gave her the opportunity to appreciate the street musicians undisturbed by the noise of the daytime crowd.

She was approaching the end of the pier when she heard him. There was a surreal timbre to his voice, and Magda almost did not recognize the song. This singer’s voice was different than the original, yet so profound in its melancholy that she felt it resonate in her heart. It had to be a truly exceptional vocalist to express such a depth of feeling in a song not his own, and a truly sorrowful person, too. There was a sincerity in his tone that was at odds with any sort of artistic affection. He meant what he was singing, as heartbreaking as that was.

He sat tucked into a corner at the end of the pier, and Magda was surprised she had not noticed him earlier. The end of the pier was always the least busy, because few tourists liked to walk this far and thus, few vendors braved this less profitable spot. At this early hour, it was pretty much empty except for her and him.

His entire appearance did not fit with the impression she had gained by listening. He looked too young to sound this weary. His long black hair hung unbound down to his hips, brushing over the ground as he leaned further down over his instrument. Combined with his loose red tunic and washed-out jeans, it made him look like a modern hippie. His skin was too dark for a mere tan, and what she could see of his face looked vaguely foreign in an unidentifiable way, which was at odds with his accent-free Polish. Magda stopped and stared.

“…I will look at everything for one last time,  
and go - I don’t know where - forever.” *

He sat motionless for a moment as the last notes faded, his eyes closed, before he turned his head to towards her and looked into her eyes with a faint smile.

“Did you like it?” he asked.

Magda sputtered, embarrassed at being caught out, but approached anyway until she was at a more comfortable talking distance.

“People seldom walk this far just to hear me sing. It is even rarer than someone really listens. You are the first one in days. Can I help you with something?”

She could not remember ever meeting a person as strange as this street musician, who waltzed all over social conventions with a few sentences, all the while remaining with his head firmly in the clouds.

“But where are my manners? Come, sit,” he said as he produced a colourful cushion out of nowhere and offered it to her. “My name is Marian, how are you this fine day?”

Dumbfounded, Magda introduced herself and followed his invitation to sit down next to him. Behind them, the blanket that she had assumed to cover Marian’s belongings shifted and snuffled. A shaggy dog’s head emerged from below the fabric and sniffed at her before the animal settled down again.

“Don’t worry about Huan,” Marian said when she side-eyed the giant dog. “He’s a big softie.”

And just like that, everything fell into place. Why she was so comfortable with this complete stranger. Why said complete stranger was so friendly towards her. Why he had seemed so oddly familiar. She had seen him before, several times, walking his gargantuan pet along the seaside promenade as the sun set, or playing fetch on the wet sand. Not only this year, but a few times over the years before, too. When she mentioned that, he only nodded and smiled serenely, and continued to pluck at the strings of his instrument.

It was a strange thing. Some sort of stringed instrument, but not one Magda could recognize. She was no musician, but she was still pretty sure that she had never seen anything like it before. The melodies his long fingers coaxed from the strings were incomparable. She would not believe an instrument like this could produce such sounds, that a single musician could produce such melodies, if she were not seeing it with her own eyes. She listened for a while as she gathered her courage to ask the questions that were on her mind.

“Why do you sit so hidden and far away?”

No one had passed them since Magda had sat down next to Marian, and he did not even have a hat laying in front of him where passersby might throw a coin. It was odd to see a street musician that was not interested in earning money, and she could not help but wonder if this was another sign of Marian’s absent-mindedness.

“Audiences are fickle,” he replied with a wistful smile. “The sea is faithful and true, and he always listens.”

He began to play a different melody then, more of a song than the idle arpeggios he had strung together before. The crashing of the waves and even the cries of the sea gulls melded into his tune seamlessly, and Magda watched, enchanted as rapture transformed his face and made him look like a different person entirely. She listened for some time before she collected herself to continue her walk. As she stood, Marian looked up at her from eerily bright turquoise eyes.

“Farewell, Magdalena Nowak. May we meet again under the sun.”

She was halfway down the pier when she realized that she had never told him her last name.

**Author's Note:**

> The song that Maglor sings is [this one](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obvizJRnezA).  
> I translated the last two lines of the chorus myself and marked them with a *. All in all, the song can be summed up to be about dying and being okay with it, which makes it a song that fits Maglor quite well, I think.
> 
> Maglor's alias, Marian, is a popular Polish first name with multiple possible origins, among them the Roman god Mars, the Latin word for ocean, _mare_ or a male form of the Biblical _Maria_. To choose such a name for himself seems like a very Maglor thing to do.  
>  Nowak is among the most common Polish surnames and as far as I know has the same root as the English word _new_. At least the meaning is equivalent.
> 
> I leave it up to you, dear readers, if the dog in this story is the famous Huan, or just a very large dog that Maglor named after said famous individual, but I'll have you know that you can pry the headcanon that Huan is a Maia with a soft spot for Fëanorions from my cold dead hands.
> 
> I am [varaenthefallen](http://varaenthefallen.tumblr.com/) on tumblr, follow me for headcanons and pretty reblogs. My askbox is always open.


End file.
